The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (59 page)

“so cinder-blackened”
: PM,
Song
, 81.

“jail-birds, veteran hoboes”
: PM, “Three Thousand Miles on a Dime in Ten Days,” in
Negro: An Anthology
, ed. Nancy Cunard (London: Wishart, 1934), 90.

“the only one”
: Nancy Cunard to PM, January 15, n.d., PMP.

“boy-self”
: Nancy Cunard to PM, May 31, n.d., PMP.

Jefferson’s self-discipline
: PM,
Song
, 84.

Unemployment, which was
: New York Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Colored Urban Population,
Second Report of the New York State Temporary Commission on the Condition of the Colored Urban Population to the Legislature of the State of New York, February 1939
(Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon, 1939), 233–36.

Margaret “Pee Wee” Inniss
: PM,
Song
, 95–96. Pee Wee is mentioned as one of Camp Tera’s earliest residents in “Government Camp a Lure to Women,”
NYT
.

Murray was impressed
: After Inniss wrote to ER of her desire to enroll in a course, ER sent a check for one hundred dollars. ER to Margaret A. Inniss, January 12, 1938, ERP.

“confrontation by typewriter”
: PM,
Song
, 96.

“narrow cubicle”
: Ibid., 95.

Surrounded by
: For a description of the Bear Mountain area at the time Camp Tera was established and Murray was a resident, see Leon A. Dickinson, “Into Nearby Park Lands: Bear Mountain Territory Has Scenic Variety for Motorists,”
NYT
, September 4, 1932. The activities and wildlife at the camp are chronicled in
TT
. See also “Camp for Needy Women Will Be Enlarged to Give Summer Vacations to 200 at Once,”
NYT
, April 15, 1934; and “Mrs. Roosevelt’s Camp Goes in for Ice Sports,”
NYT
, January 28, 1935.

Life at Camp Tera
: Throughout her life, ER took delight in being physically active. She loved to walk, swim, go horseback riding, and dance, all of which were options at the camp. Cook,
ER
, 1:94, and West with Kotz
, Upstairs at the White House
, 30.

Murray’s favorite pastimes
: On Murray’s childhood delight in the outdoors, see PM,
Proud Shoes: The Story of An American Family
(New York: Harper & Brothers), 256.

“with a pen”
: PM,
Song
, 22.

The food at Camp Tera
: “Government Camp a Lure to Women,”
NYT
. Meals were often described in
TT
.

Thanks to the first lady
: “Turkey Dinner Planned for Women at Camp Tera,”
NYT
, November 25, 1934, and “Mrs. Roosevelt’s ‘Girls’ in Camp to Get Presents,”
NYT
.

Her sense of well-being
: On Murray’s relationship with Peg Holmes, see Drury, “ ‘Experimentation on the Male Side,’ ” 81–100.

Peg was a round-faced
: PM,
Song
, 96, 98–99.

“the second Babe Ruth”
:
TT
, May 5, 1934.

Her poem
: PM,
“Poet’s Memo,” TT
, Christmas 1934, PMP.

“the tremor”
: PM,
Song
, 97.

“pretended to read”
: Ibid.

“never wanted to be”
: Lorena Hickok, “Just Plain ‘Mrs. Roosevelt’: Doesn’t Want to Be Called ‘First Lady,’ ”
WP
, November 10, 1932.

The prospect of what
: Cook,
ER
, 2:445–47.

She tied her
: Photographs and accounts of ER at Camp Tera indicate that she dressed smartly yet comfortably. See the photo at the beginning of the “Prelude” chapter of this book, the photo printed alongside the column “Mrs. Roosevelt Disappointed in Women’s Camp,”
NYHT
, and descriptions of ER’s attire in
TT
.

“plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt”
: Hickok, “Just Plain ‘Mrs. Roosevelt,’ ”
WP
, November 10, 1932.

She had raised eyebrows
: Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances S. Leighton,
It Was Fun Working at the White House
(New York: Fleet, 1969), 105; Catherine McKenzie, “Simple Fare for the White House: The Formal Dinner of Older Days Has Been Superseded by a Meal of Six Courses,”
NYT
, December 9, 1934.

“dark”
: Ruby Black,
Eleanor Roosevelt: A Biography
(New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1940), 299.

“It may be bad politics”
: Ibid., 300.

Six years before
: “Notables in Strike March: Mrs. F. D. Roosevelt Among Them—Eight Women Pickets Arrested,”
NYT
, December 9, 1926.

Now that she was
: Brigid O’Farrell, “A Stitch in Time: The New Deal, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and Mrs. Roosevelt,”
Transatlantic
1 (2006), accessed August 3, 2013,
http://transatlantica.revues.org/190
, and Brigid O’Farrell,
She Was One of Us: Eleanor Roosevelt and the American Worker
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).

ER changed the complexion
: “No Color Line at White House,”
PC
, August 11, 1934; Parks with Leighton,
The Roosevelts
, 32–33, 92, 117; and West with Kotz,
Upstairs at the White House
, 19.

“destitute”
: Parks and Leighton,
It Was Fun Working at the White House
, 115.

“people who do things”
: “Mrs. Roosevelt a Driving Force in New Deal: First Lady’s Life Crowded with Action,”
WP
, March 4, 1934.

Had her husband
: Lash,
Eleanor and Franklin
, 348.

At the suggestion of Hickok
: Lorena Hickok influenced ER’s thinking about her role as first lady, as well as issues of race, class, and gender. On the political impact of their early friendship, see Michael Golay,
American 1933: The Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Shaping of the New Deal
(New York: Free Press, 2013).

She invited the public
: ER, “I Want You to Write Me,”
Woman’s Home Companion
, August 1933, 4; Frances M. Seeber, “ ‘I Want You to Write to Me’: The Letters of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt,”
Prologue
19 (Summer 1987): 95; ER, “Mail of a President’s Wife” (unpublished manuscript, 1939), ERP; and ER, “How I Handle My Mail,” (unpublished manuscript, n.d.), ERP.

She braved the squalor
: See Cook,
ER
, 2:129–52.

Mud coated
: “Bonus Camp Viewed by Mrs. Roosevelt: Veterans Cheer First Lady as She Tells of Her War Service and Leads in Song,”
NYT
, May 17, 1933.

“An able-bodied man”
: “Mrs. Roosevelt a Driving Force in New Deal,”
WP
.

“standing at attention”
: PM,
Song
, 97.

Mills, who’d been an ambulance driver
: This characterization of Mills’s personality and regimentation at the camp are drawn from PM,
Song
, 96–97, and
TT
. The description of Mills’s attire is based on news photographs, such as the one that appears in the “Prelude” chapter of this book.

“obsequious behavior”
: PM,
Song
, 97.

This time, Mills
: Ibid.

Murray’s friend Pee Wee
: Inniss is mentioned in “Government Camp a Lure to Women,”
NYT
, and
TT
, August 11, 1933.

But Mills expelled
: PM,
Song
, 97. For accusations against the camp and ER’s defense of it, see “Jane Addams Camp Is Assailed as ‘Red’: Legion Charges Federal Funds Are Used to Promote Communism at Center for Girls,”
NYT
, July 3, 1936; “Communism Has Grip on Camps for Girls, Legion Post Reveals,”
CSM
, July 3, 1936; “Communism Charged,”
WP
, July 3, 1936; and “NYA Camp Not Red, First Lady Finds: After 3-Hour Visit with Girls at Suffern, She Holds Charge of Communism Unfounded,”
NYT
, July 9, 1936.

It is also possible
: On Mills’s efforts to control the social life of campers and her eventual termination, see Michele Mitchell, “A ‘Corrupting Influence,’ ” 205–6, and Patton, “ ‘What of Her?’: Eleanor Roosevelt and Camp Tera,” 242–43.

After a five-week
: PM,
Song
, 98.

1. “IT IS THE PROBLEM OF MY PEOPLE”

The clatter
: This description of Pauli Murray’s writing routine is drawn from Ruth Powell, interview by author, Mount Vernon, NY, February 5, 1996; Springer-Kemp, interview; and PM,
Song
, 108.

She had been forced
: PM,
Song
, 108.

It was his first
: William E. Leuchtenberg, “The Presidents Come to Chapel Hill,”
Carolina Comments
42, no. 2 (March 1994): 59–61.

The reports
: Felix Belair Jr., “Roosevelt to Talk on Foreign Affairs: Aides Expect Declaration in President’s Speech Tomorrow at Chapel Forum,”
NYT
, December 4, 1938; and Felix Belair Jr., “World Will Hear Roosevelt Speak Today: Europe and South America on Radio Nets,”
NYT
, December 5, 1938.

Thousands lined
: “Thousands in Piedmont to See President Today When He Talks at U.N.C.: Roosevelt Party Will Entrain Here Following Speech,”
DMH
, December 5, 1938; Robert H. Mason, “Steady Rain Falls on Crowd Outside Filled Gymnasium: Event Was to Have Been Held in Kenan Stadium,”
DMH
, December 6, 1938; and “Overflow Throng Hears Roosevelt,”
DMH
, December 6, 1938.

“liberal teaching”
: “Roosevelt’s Address at Chapel Hill, N.C.: Recalls Theodore Roosevelt’s Stand,”
NYT
, December 6, 1938.

The “contradiction”
: PM,
Song
, 111.

“relieve”
: Ibid., 109.

“liberal institution”
: “Roosevelt Urges Nation to Continue Liberalism; Says World Looks to US No Turning Back: Discounting Election Reverses, He Holds New Deal Must Go On,”
NYT
, December 6, 1938.